Anthropic expands Cyber Verification Program with new access tiers

Anthropic wants to give security professionals sharper tools without handing the same tools to the people they’re defending against. On October 6, 2026, the company expanded its Cyber Verification Program (CVP) with three new access tiers. Qualifying security organizations can now use advanced Claude models for both defensive and offensive cyber work, as long as they clear a verification process and stay inside the lines. The models on offer are Claude Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5, and Mythos 5.1. Three doors, three sets of keys The new structure splits access into Defense Access, Red Team Access, and Specialized Access. Each tier unlocks a different slice of capability. Defense Access covers the blue-team staples: security operations center work, incident response, and reverse-engineering malware. Red Team Access is for authorized penetration testing. Anthropic is limiting this tier to organizations only, so individual freelancers looking to moonlight as hackers-for-hire will need to look elsewhere. Specialized Access sits at the top. It involves testing critical systems and comes with US government review baked in. The dual-use problem, in tiers Under the expanded program, Anthropic will...